Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Are we there yet?

Step 1: Arrange for an earthquake or ten (thousand) to render your existing home uninhabitable.

Step 2: Wait a few months for a decision from your insurance company. Go through more major earthquakes, and wait a few more months for insurance company to deal with the sudden deluge of new claims.

Step 3: Ponder your future, your navel, your sanity. And then do it for a while longer until you finally get confirmation of demolition from insurance company.

Step 4: Spend many evenings looking at house plans only to realise that they either

a) are too wide for your narrow little section

b) have too many living spaces/bedrooms

c) cost more than you can finance

d) all of the above

Step 5: Spend precious weekend hours looking at show homes from 'design & build' firms in sparsely populated subdivisions in order to discover that they all look the same - show homes & salespeople. Put names in a hat & draw one at random.

Step 6: Take 3-4 months to sort out room sizes & layout until you are approximately 99% happy. Receive estimate for reinforced foundations. Go back to drawing board until you have a house plan with a smaller foundation that you can actually afford to build.

Step 7: Receive your membership to Fight Club. There are no forms to fill in, and no dispensations for 20 years of amicable behaviour. Membership is not only free but inevitable.

Step 8: Finalise kitchen design. If you have any kind of special needs (apparently large espresso machines aren't standard?!) this will take longer, and more phone calls/emails than you think.